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@ppoli611674629039 · 20 Nov 2020

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Metanarrative

#tolkien #fantasy

That there is a Tolkien quest in search of the narrative form that best suits the needs of his inspiration, is proven by the fact that The Lord of the Rings is always presented as a metaromanzo, a work in progress, a fairy tale that talks about itself. The metanarrative reflection unfolds throughout the book.

During the stop in Rivendell, Bilbo and Frodo meet and talk about the book that Bilbo is writing and which will be finished by Frodo and Sam. It concerns the War of the Ring and is none other than "The Red Book of Western Borders", that same book which, "revised and corrected by Tolkien", readers find themselves in the form of "The Lord of the Rings . The debate between Bilbo and Frodo is Tolkien's reflection on his own work. The writer talks to his character:

"What about helping me with my book, and making a start on the next?" suggests Bilbo / Tolkien

"Have you thought of an ending?"

"Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant;" said Frodo. “Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after? "," It will do well, if it ever comes to that "said Frodo."

Tolkien is considering with the characters the possibilities of his own tale. What to do with it? A fairy tale with a happy ending, easy to read like The Hobbit? A mirror of real life where happy endings are few?

Up to Rivendell the novel follows in the footsteps of The Hobbit and is quite light. The first chapters, in particular, written immediately after The Hobbit, as its immediate sequel, have the childish tone of the first hobbit stuff.

"A long Expected Party" is very similar to "An Unexpected Party". Gradually, however, the tone darkens, the infantilisms of hobbits diminish, the threat takes the form of a nightmare.

In essence, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings is very different from the other two because it is still drawn into the orbit of The Hobbit. During the first book Frodo grows up from the passive hobbit, who must be rescued from danger by the servant Sam and freed from the clutches of the Willow Man. He becomes the enterprising hobbit who saves his companions from the specter of the Mounds.

In Rivendell, the story takes on a mythical dimension, the personal events of the small group of hobbits are placed in a historical context. Frodo accepts his destiny as the bearer of a universal mission. Bilbo's young nephew, who in the first version of The Lord of the Rings was called Bingo, becomes Frodo, the Sage, the giver of peace and fertility, and Tolkien grows up with him.

It is with the awareness of the new value assumed by his own creature that Tolkien sees Frodo depart from Rivendell, to meet a destiny still uncertain in the writer's own mind.

"Good ... good luck!" cried Bilbo, stuttering with the cold. "I don't suppose you will be able to keep a diary, Frodo my lad, but I shall expect a full account when you get back. And don't be too long! Farewell!

The characters, especially Frodo and Sam, the heroes of the most difficult quest, the author's dearest, never lose the consciousness of being "characters". They themselves outline their essential characteristics in broad strokes and know from the outset what will be the main attractions they will exert on the reader:

"And people will say:" let's hear about Frodo and the Ring! And they’ll say: "yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he dad? "Yes my boy, the famousest of the hobbits and that's saying a lot."

"But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. “I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo would not have got far, without Sam, would he, dad?

You Sam were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be.

Almost Pirandello figures, the protagonists of The Lord of the Rings are looking not so much for an author, but for a literary genre in which to be inserted. "Who knows what kind of story we have fallen into?" Sam wonders. Will it be a fairy tale with a happy ending? A great myth about singing in the years to come? One of the many stories never told because they end badly due to the untimely death, or desertion, of the characters?

Sam claims that he always believed that the protagonists of his beloved adventures had gone of their own accord to danger:

“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr Frodo: adventures as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folks of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. "

"But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the minds. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually. Their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us; of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on. And not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same. Like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?

In the Italian version of the passage just quoted, the translator has omitted the line "the folk inside a story and not outside it", condensing it into an anodyne "the protagonists" which greatly reduces the scope of Sam's statement, which aims to a direct involvement of the reader in the story.

As before leaving Rivendell, the characters pause to discuss with their author the possible outcome of the story, so, before facing the decisive test of Monte Fato, they involve the readers in their reflections on themselves as characters, on the literary genre in which are inserted, on the quality of the myth, on the value of the happy ending.

“I wonder”, said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take anyone that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad ending but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to. "

This is a clear warning to the reader: those who recognized the model of the fairytale quest within The Lord of the Rings, can only be sure of the happy ending of the story, but this must not prevent them from fully understanding the atrocious suffering of the characters, who do not know what kind of story they have ended up in and cannot foresee its happy ending. Having accepted the fairytale model of the quest with a happy ending does not mean depriving the characters of their human value, their suffering, their depth. Perhaps Tolkien here is really wondering if it would be better to give up the happy ending in order not to belittle the characters, making them simple actors of fairytale functions. Tolkien chooses to take risks.